Japan: Safeguarding a mother tongue and mother nature
Even though both Nami and Tomoyuki were born on Okinoerabu Island (currently home to only 12,000 inhabitants), neither learned to speak Shimamuni – a local variety of the Kunigami language – fluently as children. Kunigami was added to UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger in 2009 and classified as “definitely endangered” to raise…
